Morning without you is a dwindled dawn. ~Emily Dickinsonin a letter to a friend April 1885
Over the years, the most common search term bringing new readers to my Barnstorming blog is “dwindled dawn.”
I have written about Emily Dickinson’s “dwindles” on a number of occasions before when I miss having a house full of our three children, now spread far with families of their own. Even so, I had not really been diagnosed with a serious case myself until the last two years of COVID-time.
I am clearly not the only one. “Dwindles” have spread across the globe during the COVID pandemic more quickly than the virus.
There really isn’t a pill or other therapy that works well for dwindling. One of the most effective treatments is breaking bread with friends and family all in the same room, at the same table, lingering over conversation or singing together in harmony, because there really is nothing more vital for us to do.
Just being together is the ultimate cure.
Maybe experiencing friend and family deficiency will help us understand how crucial we are to one another. Sadly, due to the pandemic, too many are now gone forever, lost to further gatherings together. It is high time to replenish the reservoir before we all dwindle away to nothing.
So if you are visiting these words for the first time because you too searched for “dwindled dawn” — welcome to Barnstorming. We can stave off the dwindles by joining together in our shared isolation.
Because mornings without you all diminishes me. I just want you to know.
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Awake the mind’s hopeless so At a quarter to six I rise And run 2 or 3 miles in The pristine air of a dark And windy winter morning With a light rain falling And no sound but the pad Of my sneakers on the asphalt And the calls of the owls in The cypress trees on Mesa Road
And when I get back you’re Still asleep under the warm covers Because love is here to stay It’s another day and we’re both still alive ~Tom Clark – “Every Day” from Light & Shade: New and Selected Poems.
How joyful to be together, alone as when we first were joined in our little house by the river long ago, except that now we know
each other, as we did not then; and now instead of two stories fumbling to meet, we belong to one story that the two, joining, made. And now
we touch each other with the tenderness of mortals, who know themselves: how joyful to feel the heart quake
at the sight of a grandmother, old friend in the morning light, beautiful in her blue robe! ~Wendell Berry “The Blue Robe” from New Collected Poem
These winter mornings – waking early to part from your warm side, leaving behind my soft imprint, I wrap up in my robe to walk the gravel drive to deliver a letter to our mailbox.
Our hilltop farm lies silent amid fallow fields, moon shadows broad across my path star sparks overhead with orange paint beginning to lick awake the eastern mountain peaks.
I walk noiselessly; step out on the road then turn ~ startled as a flashlight approaches.
A walker and her dog illuminate me in my dawn disarray like a deer in headlights: my ruffled hair, my sleep-lined face. It is a grandma-caught-in-her-bathrobe surprise at sunrise and I’m simply glad to be alive.
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Now, newborn, in wide-eyed wonder he gazes up at his creation. His hand that hurled the world holds tight his mother’s finger. Holy light spills across her face and she weeps silent wondering tears to know she holds the One who has so long held her. ~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary”in Light Upon Light
Now burn, new born to the world, Doubled-naturèd name, The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame, Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came; Kind, but royally reclaiming his own; A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east… ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”
Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79 (Zechariah’s Song)
It never fails to surprise and amaze: the dawning seems to come from nowhere.
There is bleak dark, then a hint of light over the foothills in a long thin line, followed by the appearance of subtle dawn shadows as if the night needs to cling to the ground a little while longer, not wanting to relent and let us go.
Then color appears, erasing all doubt: the hills begin to glow orange along their crest, as if a flame is ignited and is spreading down a wick. Ultimately the explosion of Light occurs, spreading the orange pink palette unto the clouds above, climbing high to bathe the glaciers of Mount Baker and onto the peaks of the Twin Sisters.
~Dayspring to our dimness~
From dark to light, ordinary to extraordinary. This gift is from the tender mercy of our God, who has become the Light of a new Day, guiding our feet on the pathway of peace.
We no longer need to stumble about in the shadows. He comes to light our darkness.
Merry Christmas today to all my Barnstorming readers and visitors!
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~John 1:5
Sleeping child, I wonder, have you a dream to share? May I see the things you see as you slumber there? I dream a wind that speaks, like music as it blows As if it were the breath of everything that grows.
I dream a flock of birds flying through the night Like silent stars on wings of everlasting light. I dream a flowing river, deep as a thousand years, Its fish are frozen sorrow, its water bitter tears.
I dream a tree so green, branches wide and long, And ev’ry leaf and ev’ry voice a song. I dream of a babe who sleeps, a life that’s just begun. A word that waits to be spoken. The promise of a world to come. ~Charles Bennett “Sleeping Child”
Oh little child it’s Christmas night And the sky is filled with glorious light Lay your soft head so gently down It’s Christmas night in Bethlehem town.
Chorus: Alleluia the angels sing Alleluia to the king Alleluia the angels sing Alleluia to the king.
Sleep while the shepherds find their way As they kneel before you in the golden hay For they have brought you a woolly lamb On Christmas night in Bethlehem.
Chorus
Sleep till you wake at the break of day With the sun’s first dawning ray You are the babe, who’ll wear the crown On Christmas morn in Bethlehem town.
Well I know now the feel of dirt under the nails, I know now the rhythm of furrowed ground under foot, I have learned the sounds to listen for in the dusk, the dawning and the noon.
I have held cornfields in the palm of my hand, I have let the swaying wheat and rye run through my fingers, I have learned when to be glad for sunlight and for sudden thaw and for rain.
I know now what weariness is when the mind stops and night is a dark blanket of peace and forgetting and the morning breaks to the same ritual and the same demands and the silence. ~Jane Clement from No One Can Stem the Tide
Seven-thirty. Driving northwest out of town, the snowscape dusky, sky tinted smoky peach. In the rear view mirror, a bright orange glow suffuses the stubbly treeline. Suddenly a column of brightness shoots from the horizon, a pillar of fire! One eye on the road, I watch behind me the head of a golden child begin to push up between the black knees of the hills. Two weeks out from Solstice, the sun so near winter it seems to rise in the south. A fiery angel stands over his cradle of branches. And what strange travelers come to honor him? And what gift will I bring to him this day? ~Thomas Smith “Advent Dawn” from The Glory
And he shall be their peace. Micah 5:5
I tossed and turned last night — my thoughts too busy, my blankets twisted in turmoil, my muscles too tight.
The worries of the day required serious wrestling in the dark rather than settling silent and forgotten under my pillow after prayer.
Yet, as ever, morning dawns anew and once again I’m comforted by the rhythm of emerging light overwhelming the night. This ritual of starting fresh remembers the promises given to us again and again in His Word.
In the name of peace today, I will get my hands dirty digging a hole deep enough to hold the worries that kept me awake in the night.
And tomorrow, even if I try to remember, I will have forgotten where exactly I buried them.
This year’s Barnstorming Advent theme “… the Beginning shall remind us of the End” is taken from the final lines in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”
Peace, peace, peace on earth and good will to all. This is the time for joy This is the time for love Now let us all sing together of peace, peace, peace on earth.
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The end of all things is at hand. We all Stand in the balance trembling as we stand; Or if not trembling, tottering to a fall. The end of all things is at hand.
O hearts of men, covet the unending land! O hearts of men, covet the musical, Sweet, never-ending waters of that strand!
While Earth shows poor, a slippery rolling ball, And Hell looms vast, a gulf unplumbed, unspanned, And Heaven flings wide its gates to great and small, The end of all things is at hand. ~Christina Rossetti “Sunday Before Advent”
Dawn was defeating now the last hours sung by night, which fled before it. And far away I recognized the tremblings of the sea. Alone, we walked along the open plain, as though, returning to a path we’d lost, our steps, until we came to that, were vain. Then, at a place in shadow where the dew still fought against the sun and, cooled by breeze, had scarcely yet been sent out into vapor, my master placed the palms of both his hands, spread wide, lightly and gently on the tender grass. And I, aware of what his purpose was, offered my tear-stained cheeks to meet his touch. At which, he made once more entirely clean the color that the dark of Hell had hidden. ~Dante from The Divine Comedy, II Purgatorio,Canto 1 lines 115−29
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4: 6
God brings forth Light through His Word, not once but at least three times:
In the beginning, He creates the sun and the moon to penetrate and illuminate the creation of our hearts and our souls.
In the stable He comes to light the world from below as well as from above so our darkened hearts and souls could be saved from self-destruction.
In the tomb, He rolls back the stone, allowing the sun to penetrate the ultimate night – raising His Son from the dead, in an ultimate defeat of darkness.
He flings open the gates of heaven to the likes of me and in response, I fling my heart through, following the Light.
Showered with the cleansing dew of His light, I am lit by the glory of God reflected in the many faces of Jesus: as vulnerable newborn, child teacher, working carpenter, healer, itinerant preacher, unjustly condemned, dying and dead, raised and ascended Son of God.
Let the dark days come as they certainly will. They cannot overwhelm my heart now, as I am lit from within, cleansed inside and out, no matter how deep the darkness that oppresses on the outside.
I know His promise. I know His face. He knows I know.
This year’s Barnstorming Advent theme “… the Beginning shall remind us of the End” is taken from the final lines in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”
1. Hail the blest morn! when the great Mediator Down from the mansions of glory descends; Shepherds, go worship the babe in the manger, Lo! for his guard the bright angels attend.
Chorus: Brightest and best of the sons of the morning.
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid; Star in the east, the horizon adorning, Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
2. Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining; Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall: Angels adore him, in slumbers reclining; Wise men and shepherds before him do fall. Chorus
3. Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion, Odors of Edom, and offerings divine, Gems from the mountains, and pearls from the ocean, Myrrh from the forest, and gold from the mine? Chorus
4. Vainly we offer each ample oblation, Vainly with gifts would his favor secure; Richer by far is the heart’s adoration, Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. Chorus
How do you capture the wind on the water? How do you count all the stars in the sky? How do you measure the love of a mother Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry?
Chorus: Candlelight, angel light, firelight and star-glow Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn Silent night, holy night, all is calm and all is bright Angels are singing; the Christ child is born
Shepherds and wise men will kneel and adore him Seraphim round him their vigil will keep Nations proclaim him their Lord and their Saviour But Mary will hold him and sing him to sleep
Chorus
Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation A child with his mother that first Christmas Day
Chorus ~John Rutter “Candlelight Carol”
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Light splashed this morning on the shell-pink anemones swaying on their tall stems; down blue-spiked veronica light flowed in rivulets over the humps of the honeybees; this morning I saw light kiss the silk of the roses in their second flowering, my late bloomers flushed with their brandy. A curious gladness shook me. So I have shut the doors of my house, so I have trudged downstairs to my cell, so I am sitting in semi-dark hunched over my desk with nothing for a view to tempt me but a bloated compost heap, steamy old stinkpile, under my window; and I pick my notebook up and I start to read aloud and still-wet words I scribbled on the blotted page: “Light splashed…”
I can scarcely wait till tomorrow when a new life begins for me, as it does each day, as it does each day. ~Stanley Kunitz “The Round”
It is too easy to be ground to a pulp by the constant irritations of the day – my aggravations are too easily expressed, my worries never seem to wane – all of it sucks gladness out of me. When my feelings become four-dimensional and surround and drown me, I lose all perspective on what got me out of bed to begin the day.
God is in these intricate details, whether the splash of light on a petal or the smell of rotting compost; it is my job to notice this. It is tempting to look past His ubiquitous presence in all things, to seek out only the elegant grandeur of creation and bypass the plain and smelly and homely. Yet even what lacks beauty from my limited perspective is worthy of His divine attention.
He knows the value and purpose of each thing He created, including me and the things that aggravate me no end.
The time has come to be refreshed and renewed even when surrounded by decay. His care is revealed in the tiniest way. He is worthy of my attention because I am constantly worthy of His.
If I rise early enough, I can see each new day’s light splash everything awake. By the time I come in to sit down to record my words and photos, I’m thoroughly washed with a fresh dawn. I can scarcely wait to take on what this day will bring.
A new life begins for me, as it does each day, as it does each day.
Maybe you or someone you love needs encouragement and a splash of light and beauty? Consider this book from Barnstorming, available to order here:
I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones. There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath, Summer, so much too beautiful to stay, Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves, And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death. ~Elinor Wylie from “Wild Peaches”
An amber light stretches from sky to ground this beautiful morning, another mid-summer dawning- today a clone of yesterday’s and the day before.
A stretch of forty identical days cannot last and will not stay. I long again for rain and chill nights.
Drying up and pock-marked with holes, I feel punched and withering in this browning landscape, wondering on this Sabbath day of communing together where holiness is to be found.
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For as a cloud received Him from their sight, So with a cloud will He return ere long: Therefore they stand on guard by day, by night, Strenuous and strong.
They do, they dare, they beyond seven times seven Forgive, they cry God’s mighty word aloud: Yet sometimes haply lift tired eyes to Heaven– “Is that His cloud?” ~Christina Rossetti from “Ascension Day”
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130: 5-6 from a Song of Ascents
Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps. — Henri Nouwen from Bread For The Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith
To wait is a hard sweet paradox in the Christian life. It is hard not yet having what we know will be coming. But it is sweet to have certainty it is coming because of the footprints we have seen: He has been here among us.
Like the labor of childbirth, we groan knowing what it will take to get there, and we are full to brimming already.
The waiting won’t be easy; it will often be painful to be patient, staying alert to possibility and hope when we are exhausted, barely able to function. Others won’t understand why we wait, nor do they comprehend what we could possibly be waiting for.
We persevere together, with patience, watching and hoping; we are a community groaning together in sweet expectation of the morning.
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Dawn was defeating now the last hours sung by night, which fled before it. And far away I recognized the tremblings of the sea. Alone, we walked along the open plain, as though, returning to a path we’d lost, our steps, until we came to that, were vain. Then, at a place in shadow where the dew still fought against the sun and, cooled by breeze, had scarcely yet been sent out into vapor, my master placed the palms of both his hands, spread wide, lightly and gently on the tender grass. And I, aware of what his purpose was, offered my tear-stained cheeks to meet his touch. At which, he made once more entirely clean the color that the dark of Hell had hidden. ~Dante from The Divine Comedy, II Purgatorio,Canto 1 lines 115−29
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4: 6
This morning after turning our clocks ahead an hour, I eagerly looked out the window seeking a reprieve from interminable darkness. I seek the promise of being led back into the light that is suddenly an hour delayed. It is the simple knowledge that as things change, they may get lighter and brighter.
So I harvest hope.
God made light through His Word, not once but at least three times. In the beginning, He created the sun and the moon to penetrate and illuminate the creation of our hearts and our souls. In the stable He came to light the world from below as well as from above so those hearts and souls could be saved from self-destruction. In the tomb, He rolled back the stone and raised His Son from the dead, the ultimate defeat of darkness.
I am showered with the cleansing dew of His light, lit from the glory of God reflected in the many faces of Jesus: as newborn, child teacher, working carpenter, healer, itinerant preacher, unjustly condemned, dying and dead, raised and ascended Son of God.
Let the dark days come as they certainly will. They cannot overwhelm me now, lit from within, cleansed inside and out, no matter how deeply the darkness oppresses.
I know His promise. I know His face. He knows I know.
When I wake up earlier than you and you are turned to face me, face on the pillow and hair spread around, I take a chance and stare at you, amazed in love and afraid that you might open your eyes and have the daylights scared out of you. But maybe with the daylights gone you’d see how much my chest and head implode for you, their voices trapped inside like unborn children fearing they will never see the light of day. The opening in the wall now dimly glows its rainy blue and gray. I tie my shoes and go downstairs to put the coffee on. ~Ron Padgett, “Glow” from Collected Poems.
It is my morning routine to wake early and I take a moment to look at you still asleep, your slow even breaths and peaceful face- I’m thankful for every day I get to spend with you.
I know you know this~ we remind each other each day in many ways, to never forget.
What blessing comes from a love openly expressed and never hidden~ thriving in the dark of night, yet never shining brighter than in the delights and daylights of each new morning together.
Barnstorming 